


Indebted

by yoshizora



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crimson Flower Route, Female Byleth, Gen, Happy Ending, No Romance, Not A Fix-It, Student!Byleth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25905421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: A mercenary upends Leonie's life, and then some.(an AU in which Byleth was at Sauin Village and Leonie doesn't know what to make of things)
Relationships: Jeralt Reus Eisner & Leonie Pinelli, Leonie Pinelli & Byleth Eisner
Comments: 40
Kudos: 57
Collections: Leonie Week 2020





	1. how not to be a hero

**Author's Note:**

> somewhat vague canon divergence that will focus on leonie throughout the events of the game, as well as her relationship with both jeralt and byleth (and later, others at garreg mach). the chapters to follow are gonna be much, much shorter.
> 
> leonie society rise up.....!

Is this really the same warrior who led the valiant charge? Slumped over a sticky wooden table with a sloshed tankard and beer foam in his stubble? No one’s telling him to get out because he’s not… technically causing any sort of disturbance, though his snores are almost loud enough to drown out the shouting around him. He reeks of ale and sweat. Someone passes by and delivers a hearty slap to his shoulder, disturbing the hairs on his face when he wrinkles his nose.

Leonie, holding back her dissuasion, steps up. There’s a sort of feeling one gets when they jump from a high riverbank, only to hit ankle-deep water instead of a nice, deep watering hole. Or the water’s warm and mucky and filled with bugs. Or there’s too much fish shit that settled into the sediment.

… Mild disappointment. That’s what it is.

It only lasts for a fleeting second, before Leonie forgets all about that feeling.

“Hey,” she starts. No. Wait. Maybe she ought to be more formal? She clears her throat. “Excuse me, sir!”

A man with a dark, bushy beard laughs. “The captain’s not gonna be waking up anytime soon! We’ll carry him out before ya close up for the night!” He stares at Leonie for a moment, probably only just realizing that she’s too young to be a disgruntled barmaid who wants to clear the table for other customers. “Er, did ya need something?”

“Yeah,” Leonie says, never tearing her eyes away from this slovenly, smelly, drunken man who probably couldn’t even count his own fingers before he passed out. “I want him to take me on as his apprentice.”

* * *

Her father, along with all the other capable men of the village (which didn’t really add up to much, in the face of bigger numbers and sharper weapons that they just didn’t have access to) banded together to deal with the poachers-bandits before the end of the month. Brave hunters together, armed with wooden spears and bows and traps of no use against anything more intelligent than a wild boar, and valiance… and courage…

Did absolutely nothing.

Not even a burning desire for revenge against those who wronged them and stole precious resources would be enough. Leonie had watched from the kitchen window, standing beside her mother, as her father and all those other capable men trudged back through the gates with their heads hung in shame.

* * *

“No,” Jeralt says. He closes his eyes and presses his cheek back against the sticky surface of the table. Comfy.

“You don’t even know my name yet! …Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Leonie.”

“I don’t care.”

“Jeralt, right? Your friends told me you’d be in a bad mood.” Leonie, completely undeterred, scrapes a chair across the floor to sit beside him. The man with the dark bushy beard helplessly shrugs even though Jeralt isn’t even looking at him. “Listen, I know what you guys are doing for us. For our entire village. We’d starve to death in the winter if it weren’t for you. So— thanks for all this. I really, really mean it.”

Jeralt grunts.

“Don’t bother.” One of bushy beard’s companions chimes in. He has a plain face, one that Leonie is sure she’ll forget about later no matter how hard she tries to commit his appearance to memory. “We didn’t do it out of the goodness of our hearts. That ain’t our way, you know, we get paid actual bullions for our troubles. It’s a job to do.”

That’s how mercenaries operate. Yes, yes, she knows. She’s not an _idiot_ , thank-you-very-much, she’d like to believe she’s sensible and knows as much of that as she knows the way sharp pointy objects work around meat. An arrow piercing through the hide of an innocent deer. Snares digging to the bone of a rabbit’s leg. They hunted those poachers in the same fashion she would shoot quails from the sky as practice and for lunch, except not quite, because taking a human’s life is _very_ different from the respectful symbiosis with nature that they adhere to out here. The bandits didn’t respect that. They took and took and took until there was nothing left for the villagers and maybe that’s why they deserved to be hunted down and slaughtered just like wild game, but without the unsaid thanks and prayers to the goddess for such bountiful previsions.

They deserve to die, and her father and all the other hunters didn’t deserve to suffer such humiliation from being unable to do anything. Right? And it wasn’t as though a mere child, not even old enough to pass off as a barmaid, could have done anything about it either.

Powerlessness is a horrible thing. Leonie sees what she has to do, and this guy’s crappy hangover won’t get in her way.

“Let me be your apprentice.”

“Go away.”

Don’t be unrealistic. Her father said that to her, when she asked him how the hunt went. If all these strong hunters couldn’t do anything, then what could his daughter do? She knows how to catch small birds and rabbits and how to skin a deer, but she can’t hunt another human being. She can’t fight another human being. Sparring with the local boys doesn’t count because they never even break each other’s noses.

She’s going to be his apprentice, damnit, and learn how to defend the village. Because next time, what if the Gloucester family doesn’t bother sending mercenaries? What if they randomly decide it’s not worth it, and the village certainly can’t afford to purchase the services of a militia this skilled. Or led under such impeccable leadership. What if they’ll always be a soft target for bandits and poachers and highwaymen to gnaw and claw away at until there’s absolutely nothing left, as if Sauin village never even existed in the first place?

Jeralt swats at the air, mumbling in his drunken daze and his voice thick with the stench of beer.

“Let me be your apprentice!”

“Leave me alone.”

Her father didn’t leave the house for two days. Leonie saw how it crushed him. His leg was all stitched up from where a steel sword slashed at him, and he couldn’t walk for a while. He should’ve stayed in longer but he needed to provide, and Leonie’s mother suffers from aches in just about all her joints from a lifetime of hard work.

They weren’t the only ones. Times were getting tough and their garden plots could only provide so much for this many people.

And then, then the company arrived atop horses gleaming with sweat and heavy hooves trampling the mud flat, without so much as a grand speech or gloat of reassurance. Atop their shoulders they carried swords and lances and axes and even a couple of them riding in the back held tomes carrying the arcane art of magic like, like fire and elfire and whatever else there is. No one in the village uses magic.

They set out in the morning, came back in the evening, set up camp just outside the village and that was that. What had caused so much suffering for the past two seasons is nothing more than a leisurely hunt to a militia of this caliber.

“Let me be your apprentice!” Leonie slams a hand down on the table.

He lifts his head like it’s as heavy as stones. Three of his men are trying to urge Leonie to leave now, and maybe come back the next day or the next or just give up altogether, but they might as well be gnats buzzing around her shoulders.

“Not to brag or anything, but I’m a _very_ fast learner and— okay, well, I’m not too great with things like math and history because, we don’t really have much of a need for things like that here, you know? All the textbooks we have are secondhand and we didn’t exactly ask for them, they’re just misprinted stock that traveling merchants didn’t want anymore and gave to us for free in exchange for lodgings. Practical stuff, though? I’m great with my hands and I’m the best marksman among all the kids my age here, even the boys—“

Jeralt holds up a hand, palm out. “Stop talking.”

“Oh. Okay, sure! So, what d’you say?”

“Leonie, right?”

“Yessir!”

* * *

The buzz is already wearing off. Wait, since when did it become a _buzz?_ Curse his blood. Curse everything. Jeralt staggers up to his feet, nearly shoving the table over with his unsteady movements. Damnit. Leonie shoots up to her feet as well, eyes bright and fiery and nothing at all like the eager squires and wannabe-squires he’d met before.

She’s rough, unhewn, porous and jagged and completely unrefined. A pebble left by a dirt road, completely unremarkable. Not even worth a second glance.

Jeralt ignores the confused protests of his men and gestures for Leonie to follow him out of the inn. The sky is dim with the last remnants of sunlight, dusk before nightfall; it’s pleasantly cool outside. A mosquito whines past his ear. Jeralt crushes it in one fist. The buzz is already nothing more than a vaguely comfortable hum at this point.

Wait, Leonie is still talking. Like a merchant peddling wares and talking big about them, pretending like an ordinary carved spoon is something extraordinary taken from the wood of a tree revered by the first followers of the goddess herself. Some bullshit like that.

“Captain Jeralt! We shouldn’t have let this kid bother you— we’re sorry! You can go back to your tent to sleep, we won’t let anyone else disturb you!”

“Leave us alone.” It’s easy to make them go away. They always listen because they trust him. Alright, they’re gone, and Leonie obviously doesn’t care.

She wasn’t bullshitting.

Here’s a nice little oak tree, with branches low enough to reach up and grab if he makes the effort to jump. It’s close enough to the village that they can still smell the cooking fires but far enough that they can’t hear anything but the wind rustling low through the bushes, and a faint hush of water from the nearby river. Leonie had finally stopped talking, now waiting for Jeralt’s verdict.

“Kid…” He rubs the back of his neck, sighing with all the weariness of someone who had been to Hell and back. “I’m not looking for any apprentices right now.”

“But your company will be staying here for at least another month, right? That’s what your friend said! I won’t forgive you if you change your mind in a couple seeks, so I’ll change your mind right now. That way, there’ll be more time for you to teach me.”

“Teach you _what_.”

“How to be as strong as you, of course.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, but there isn’t even a hangover for him to have the excuse to tell her to ask again in the morning. When, hopefully, she would have a good night’s rest to sleep on it and realize how ridiculous she’s being and drop the question altogether.

Okay, so he’ll make sure she has a full night to have an epiphany and change her mind. How old is she, even? Can’t be any older than…

Jeralt sighs again, this time a bit harder. He’s not a good teacher. He can’t be a mentor. This girl doesn’t know what she’s talking about. _To be as strong as_ — that’s the sort of thing kids who believe in storybooks say, when they don’t know how hard life can really get. Yet, there’s no naivety in the way she carries herself, so determined that she readily admits she can’t do math and brags about her marksmanship in the same breath. Of _course_ she’d want to be strong, then.

They routed a half dozen bandits this afternoon. It wasn’t terribly difficult. But they had to do it, because no one in the village could (and it’s what they were paid to do as mercenaries, besides).

And the townspeople even had the kindness to offer his company free drinks at their lonesome inn-slash-tavern after all they’d done.

“You can’t watch me at work. It’s too dangerous. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Of course I know that. I’d die out there,” she says so candidly that Jeralt forgets to pretend he’s suffering from a fake hangover.

“Is that so.”

“That’s why I need to learn from the best of the best. Your company is called the _Jeralt_ Mercenaries. Who else would I ask?”

He could think of a few other men and women under his command who would be more than happy to teach Leonie how to swing a sword around, but he suspects that wouldn’t satisfy her.

“We… couldn’t do _anything_.” Leonie’s shoulders tremble. “My dad is one of the strongest hunters in our village. I’m not bragging about that, it’s a fact. But he, and all the other men, couldn’t stop those bandits from coming into our village and taking whatever they wanted. And i thought to myself, what could _I_ even do? I’m just a kid who helps tan the leather and trim the fletching.”

“You said you’re one of the best.”

“I’m strong and I work hard. But that’s not anywhere near good enough.”

Jeralt considers this for a moment. And considers it a while longer. And continues to think as the sky begins to darken and he hears his mercs laughing and telling stories at their camp. Then he points to that oak tree, and to the lowest branch.

“Can you grab that branch with both hands?”

She does easily enough and without question, feet dangling less than a meter above the dried mud and grass. The branch slightly creaks but holds fast.

“Hold onto it. If you’re still here by morning, I’ll let you be my apprentice.” Shit, maybe he’s still drunk after all.

* * *

“You should’ve heard her speech, it was like a… like a rambling nonsensical stream of consciousness. Don’t look at me like that. What I did isn’t cruel. It’s the kind of thing she was expecting, right? A test of strength, or… I told you, stop looking at me like that. I can’t teach her what she wants, because I’m not even sure what she wants. Or she tells me what she wants but I don’t even think _she_ knows what she really wants. She’s just a kid, even younger than you…. I think? Pass me another bottle. That one over there, yeah. C’mon, stop looking at me like that. Please.”

* * *

He’s up at dawn, gasping awake with another one of those bad dreams, the insides of his mouth utterly foul with the aftertastes of last night’s drinks. The bedroll beside him is empty. Jeralt wipes a calloused palm over his face, digs at the grit caught in the corners of his eyes, and pushes himself up to his feet. The blood rushes to his head. He stumbles out, greeted by a misty dawn that hasn’t even met the sunrise proper yet.

This way, that way… where was it? Through the trees, that way. Definitely that way. Wasn’t too far, he made sure of that. Weren’t her parents worried? Or did that kid make impromptu camping or sleepovers a regular thing that they didn’t need to worry? Or did they feel safe and sound, now that there was a band of mercenaries just outside their front door— oh, of course, Greyson must have stopped by to let them know that the honorable Captain Jeralt was looking after their daughter, nothing to worry about, she just wanted to have a tour of their authentic genuine mercenary camp.

He curses as his face hits a spiderweb that’d been spun between reaching branches. What was he thinking? The kid didn’t mean any harm. Sure, she was kind of a nuisance, and she talked a little bit too much, but she just wanted… to be better than less than _good enough._ Because she’s just a backwater country bumpkin who never met a proper soldier, much less a proper mercenary, and now her tiny world’s been flipped upside down by the momentous arrival of a band of capable mercenaries who know how to deal with poachers-slash-bandits. She probably thinks they’re the coolest guys in the universe.

It wasn’t _too_ far from the village. This path is slightly beaten and only wide enough to put one foot directly after the other. Last night was a daze, or he’d already willed himself into forgetting most of it. That’s what he’d say, though it isn’t much of an excuse. He wasn’t— it wasn’t a big deal. Spending a night outside beneath a tree is completely safe, especially within earshot of both a village of hunters and a camp of mercs. Those bandits would still be licking their wounds from the previous day’s fight, so they’d know better than to come lurking around too.

He stumbles into a clearing where that little oak tree stands proud. Leonie is curled up in the grass with hair dusted with morning dew, peacefully sleeping like a cat. Her arms are bent, elbows tucked into the curve of her body, and he can see that her palms are scratched up and bloodied from the effort of holding onto that tree branch through the night.

Byleth looks up at Jeralt from where she kneels beside the sleeping girl. She has one hand lightly resting upon Leonie’s back.

Jeralt’s shoulders sag. “… Don’t look at me like that.”

* * *

Byleth once spent three whole days and four whole nights who knows where, in the middle of the woods out in Empire territory, and she returned as if nothing unusual had happened at all and seemingly unconcerned that no one could find her during that time. Jeralt doesn’t know why she left or why she came back. She never spoke of it again.

It just wasn’t a big deal, is all.

* * *

Jeralt’s daughter is.

Weird.

Leonie knows that there’s a lot in the world she hasn’t seen, a lot of different people she hasn’t met, blah blah blah, but this has to be an exception to that norm she’s so badly missing out on. Regular people blink, for starters. Has she blinked at all yet?

Leonie’s arms hurt. Her shoulders are on fire and it hurts when she bends her elbows and she swears she can hear her knuckles creak whenever she tries to bend her fingers. Not that she tries to bend her fingers too much, because they _hurt._ She doesn’t quite have the eloquence to describe each node of pain and each horrible ache, but it hurts. A lot.

Well, that doesn’t matter.

“Look, I’m sorry. It was a rash decision and you caught me in a bad mood. Nevermind… that’s not an excuse. I shouldn’t have told you to do that.” They’re back at the camp and sitting by a smoldering fire while Byleth cooks eggs and slabs of salted meat on a dinged-up copper pan. None of the other mercenaries have emerged from their tents yet, but noises of early morning routines drift from the village. They have time to talk before the day properly begins, so might as well. “Why _did_ you listen to me?”

Why, because it’s simple. “I want to be your apprentice. I was serious about that.” Leonie looks down at her scratched up hands. “… I couldn’t do it, anyway. I fell asleep at some point and let go.”

“That should be proof enough that I’m not fit to be your mentor,” Jeralt says, unable to make eye contact. He waits for a moment, as if expecting one or the other to say something to refute his point, but they remain silent. Byleth is seemingly very, very focused on making sure the yolks don’t break while they cook. Or she’s listening like a hawk. He can’t tell. The silence stirs an uneasy feeling in his stomach, and he finally lifts his head to look at the two of them— his daughter, and this girl who barged into the tavern last night and demanded that he make her his apprentice.

Do mercenaries even have apprentices? That sort of thing should be reserved for blacksmiths, and tanners and butchers. He’s not a mercenary by heart, he’s a knight. Always has been and always will be, he supposes. This is just a temporary gig until. Until something else happens to upheave his life like fate seems to be so fond of doing frequently enough. Is Leonie the latest cataclysm? Was she sent here by unseen destiny to shake his life once more? Or the other way around?

Leonie stares hard at him with that same look in her eyes from the night before.

It’s a different kind of unease that stirs him, now. Like the complete opposite when Byleth stared at him, unblinking, neither smiling nor frowning as he had recounted what he told Leonie to do last night. There are _feelings_ he can’t get a read on. That’s different. He’ll mull on that later. “… I can teach you some basic swordplay. You ever fought with a sword before?”

“ _Yesssss!_ ” Leonie pumps a fist in the air, momentarily forgetting how much her muscles scream in protest to sudden motions like that. Her excitement is contagious enough to crack a lopsided smile from Jeralt. Byleth doesn’t react, nor does she look up. “I mean— no, I’ve never fought with a sword before! I mean, _yes_ , thank you, I can’t wait to get started! I should show you what I can already do, right? With a bow? That’s the only weapon I’ve trained with, it was mostly my dad and some other hunters who taught me the ropes, but I figure hunting and fighting must be totally different?”

“Slow down. My company will be staying here for at least another month.” The bacon smells heavenly. He inhales deeply, to buy himself time to collect his thoughts and to savor the savory odor of cooking pork. “It’s too early for this… hey, why don’t you have breakfast first and chat a while with the other mercenaries. I need to… go close my eyes for a little while longer. Headache.”

“O-Okay.” Don’t get ahead of yourself. That’s a good bit of advice and Leonie is a bit proud of for telling herself that and keeping herself sitting instead of running off after Jeralt as he shuffles to one of the tents and ducks inside. Self-discipline. Step one. No, Captain Jeralt will tell her what step one is. Will there be a training regime? A schedule? What could step one possibly be, in her journey to becoming the best of the best?

The bacon sizzles and pops loud enough to startle Leonie. Oh, that’s right, her arms and hands hurt like _hell._

“Oh, I didn’t even introduce myself. Sorry for being rude.” Her present company says nothing. Leonie too busy riding that high of excitement to really care. “The name’s Leonie! And you’re… Captain Jeralt’s daughter? Um?”

“Byleth.”

“Byleth, gotcha! You know, I think we might be about the same age. You kinda look like my age, at least… how old are you? I’m fifteen.”

Byleth shrugs.

“… You’re also fifteen?”

Another shrug.

“Huh? What’s that shrug supposed to mean? Can’t you just tell me how old you are instead of playing coy like that? What’s your problem?”

She’s sliding the eggs and bacon onto a couple of plates, like she didn’t even hear Leonie’s questions.

“Well— geez, if you’re gonna be that rude! _Sorry_ for trying to be nice!”

Byleth, of course, says and does nothing as Leonie gets up and stomps away. She looks down at the two plates of food she’d prepared, turns her head in the direction where Leonie had gone, and glances back down, now unsure what to do with two plates all by herself. Should she go after Leonie? But she was mad. That might make her angrier, even if Byleth offers the eggs and bacon. But wasn’t Leonie hungry?

* * *

“Captain Jeralt? Hm… he’s a dependable fellow. The kind of guy you’d definitely want at your back in the heat of battle. No one swings a sword harder than the Captain! Haha! No, but really… there’s a reason why all of us are following him, and it’s not because of the measly pay. He’s just an easy sort of guy to trust, you know?”

“Ehh, to be honest, I dunno if I’ll be sticking around any longer. I’ve had my fair share of experience being a mercenary, and Captain Jeralt’s company is a bit _different_ from the others I’ve worked for. There’s something about the Captain… that’s a bit off. Say, why do you even wanna be his apprentice, anyway?”

“They call him the _Blade Breaker!_ Cool moniker, right? No idea who came up with it, but he’s certainly strong enough to shatter swords with his own lance. He used to serve the Central Church as a Knight of Seiros before forming the company! Doesn’t really talk about it at all, I happened to find out by chance when some booze loosened his lips one evening. Ohh, yeah, he’s a drinker. Doesn’t ever seem to get hangovers, though. Hah! Wish that were me.”

“His daughter is weird. Never talks to anyone. I’d be careful around her. Between you and me, kid, I dunno if she and the Captain are even related.”

* * *

Captain Jeralt is strong and wise and a good leader and sensible and likes to drink maybe a bit too much, but what jaded soldier worth his salt doesn’t? Leonie tells everything to her parents, leaving out the part where the Captain told her to hang from a tree branch all night, and instead says she fell by the river and scraped her hands playing the other day and that’s why she needs that special herbal balm they use for soothing broken skin. Her mother is weary and happy that Leonie has found a new project to fixate on. Her father doesn’t say much but he neither disapproves, still stewing in his failure to save the village.

Someday, Leonie will be the one to save the village using all she learned from the mercenaries currently saving their village. Then her father won’t have to worry anymore and he can be proud of his daughter, who learned how to protect everyone from the mercenary who protected them all first.

Something like that.

Then, Jeralt tells her that he’s no hero.

“We did it because it’s a job,” Jeralt says, pulling arrows out of the makeshift targets they painted on trees. The kid’s a better archer than he had expected, so that’s a somewhat pleasant surprise. “Not out of the goodness of our hearts, or because we took pity. The Gloucester family paid us in advance. That kind of incentive is irresistible to mercenaries like us.”

Leonie knows better, able to read everything between the signs. The mercenaries don’t intrude upon the villagers’ daily lives. The drinks at the tavern are free, but they’re always careful to make sure the chairs are pushed in at the end of the night and that the owner is thanked properly for his hospitality. Jeralt drinks and drinks and drinks and somehow there’s still plenty of ale to go around for the rest of his men. She saw Grayson flipping a shiny coin to Granny Sofia in exchange for an apple without even haggling or bargaining. These mercenaries are fair and just and kind and it isn’t _just_ about the money. Would Grayson have demanded the apple for free if the Gloucester family weren’t so generous with that advance payment?

She thinks a little more. Jeralt is bringing the arrows back.

“Heroes don’t do good deeds because they would, but because they would _and_ can,” Leonie slowly says, stretching her arms. They’re no longer sore from that night spent hanging from the oak tree. Well, maybe they’re a little sore, but she was insistent on jumping straight into training as soon as possible.

“Hm… never thought of it that way. Seems kinda harsh.”

“You think so? That’s just what I think.” She takes the bow again. Jeralt taps her shoulders and legs, adjusting her stance, pointing out where her grip is off. “My dad and the other men of the village tried to fight back against the bandits before. They’re not heroes, because they couldn’t do anything about it. Even if they tried.”

“Hey, that’s cold.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Captain Jeralt. I love my dad more than anything in the world, and I respect his efforts. A lot. But he _knew_ he wasn’t strong enough because— see, he’d hurt his knee a few years ago and now he has a limp. That bad knee doesn’t slow him down when it came to hunting game, but it wasn’t going to do him any favors in a fight against a bunch of bandits who fight dirty. But he still went out anyway, because… I dunno, honor? Pride?”

“So you don’t actually respect him.”

“That’s not—! I’m just saying, he shouldn’t have been so reckless!”

 _Thwip._ Slightly off the mark. Jeralt taps her knuckles, has her adjust her grip again, and mumbles something about where the wind is pushing.

“Then,” Jeralt grumbles, leaning back against a tree with his arms folded. “Heroes need to be _strong_ , not just brave. Is that it?”

“I knew you’d get it, Captain!” _Thwip._ The arrow lands a little closer this time. “I can throw myself headfirst into as many battles as I want, but, that won’t mean _anything_ if I don’t win any of them. People won’t think I’m a hero or a brave warrior. They’d just think I’m some crazy lady who doesn’t know when to call it quits! If… if my dad died out there, I would never be able to forgive him. But he came back _alive_ , because he didn’t keep trying to fight until he couldn’t anymore. I said I respect his efforts, but I respect his will to live more than that. Would I have felt better if he didn’t give it a shot at all? Well… that’s hard to say.”

“You’d probably end up calling him a coward.”

“Maybe, maybe. …Yeah, you’re right. I would’ve been angry at him for sitting at home while all the other hunters left to fight. But I think… I’d like to think that I’d figure it out eventually, that his bad leg meant he wouldn’t have stood a chance at all. I get it _now_ , right? My mom is one of the best trappers in the village, but she can’t use a blade on anything but wild game she catches. Without my dad, it’d just be the two of us, and if the bandits broke through the gates again… argh! I’m sorry, Captain Jeralt, but I can’t focus like this!”

“Hey, you’re doing fine. But if it’s bugging you this much, you should probably go talk to your parents about it instead of me.”

“I can’t let them _worry._ ”

“You’re their kid. Believe me, it’s their job to worry.”

Jeralt’s words hang heavy in the silence that follows. Leonie fires off another arrow, half-heartedly, the bowstring not even drawn back all the way. The arrow lands in the grass only a few steps in front of her. She never thought too hard about where she stood with her parents because there wasn’t anything to think hard about. They love her, and she loves them, and sometimes they’ll bicker and she threw more tantrums as a child than she’d like to admit, but they’re _family._ And she can’t make family worry so much. Maybe her dad thought the same thing before he tried to fight the bandits off, too.

“Yeah… alright, that makes sense. I guess you’d know what it’s like, being a parent yourself and everything.”

His shoulders stiffen.

“Oh— by the way, how old is your daughter? I asked her the other day but I, uh, kinda lost my temper when she wouldn’t answer and I ran off. I was planning to go apologize after today’s training.”

“Ahh…” Something passes over his face, twisting his expression and deepening the wrinkles over his brow. Then it all smooths out and he forces out an awkward chuckle. “We don’t celebrate birthdays. She never cared about things like that, so we both kinda lost track of the years.”

“Huh?! You’re joking!”

“Mmh, ‘fraid not.”

“So that’s why she didn’t tell me… ugh, I was such a jerk!”

She nearly startles at the large hand that suddenly clasps her on the shoulder, causing her to fumble with the bow. Jeralt looks just as tired as he did when she confronted him at the tavern, but now he’s smiling and his eyes aren’t bloodshot. At least. Leonie straightens up and hesitantly smiles back.

“We still have a couple hours of sunlight. I’ll show you how to hold a sword, c’mon.”

“Right—! I really got distracted, didn’t I? Sorry about that!”

Everything about her is rough and unpolished, but hunters don’t need finesse. Not like those regal knights with all that pomp and circumstance. Frankly, maybe she doesn’t even need to be trained to such an extent, seeing as she’s already more capable with a bow than most young recruits Jeralt had met throughout his life, both in his knighthood and during his career as a mercenary, but it’s exactly as she said before. All the strength she possesses now doesn’t count until she’s strong enough— no, _more_ than strong enough.

What is it that drives such a young person to attain great skill?

Leonie wants to protect her home and the people she cares about. It’s nothing so grand like a twisted revenge plot or a reclamation of honor or clawing up her way into nobility. Jeralt’s seen plenty of that before. This girl is… refreshingly simple. Headstrong, and stubborn, and passionate and all fired up and _simple._

Simple like Byleth, but possessing all that fire he had always wished his own daughter would have.

Alright, back to training. “So you want me to teach you how to be a hero for your village. Is that right?”

 _Thwip._ Bullseye.

“Huh? No, I just want to be a capable mercenary like you. Didn’t I say that before?”


	2. a good student

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 2: Student
> 
> i kind of rushed through this one, my bad

It was only meant to be a simple sparring session.

One of Byleth’s knees pins Leonie’s arm to the ground, pressing painfully against bone. Leonie brings her other arm up just in time to block a punch aimed for her face— but it does little good, it only slams her own wrist against her nose with a sharp impact that makes her vision go white with pain. Leonie’s vision staggers. She lets out a shuddering gasp at the sensation of warm blood spilling down the sides of her face. Some of it dribbles over her lip; she tastes warm iron.

Byleth punches her again.

 _Don’t hold back,_ Leonie had said. _Don’t you dare hold back._ How was she supposed to know Byleth would take that so _literally_ , or that this girl was actually a monster wearing the skin of a human? Don’t hold back. That’s what she said. Don’t hold back.

So it would be her own fault, then. For underestimating the Captain’s daughter, or for overestimating just how much she’d learned from the past few days beneath Captain Jeralt’s tutelage.

If she weren’t struggling to not choke on her own blood, Leonie might have blamed herself for getting in completely over her head.

“Hey—!”

The weight on her arm and chest are abruptly gone. Sunlight spills over her bleary eyes and Leonie seizes the opportunity to gasp for breath, rolling over on her side to spit blood and bile. She gingerly brings her fingers up to her nose. It’s… painful. But miraculously not broken, maybe. Maybe Byleth was holding back after all, despite her initial demands.

Then the sun is blocked out again, this time by a larger silhouette that doesn’t slam a fist into her face like Byleth had, thankfully. Still, Leonie cringes away. She can’t let the Captain see her like this, she can’t—

“What are you two doing…?”

She realizes he’s addressing Byleth, not her. He’s gripping both her shoulders. Byleth frowns very, very slightly, as if he’d asked her to predict the weather for tomorrow.

“Leonie wanted to spar,” Byleth finally says after a moment of thought, intonation as flat as ever. “Like a real battle.”

Their lances lay in the grass out of reach. She had thought… stupidly, that maybe she would have a slight advantage if she insisted they use lances, because the Captain had noted several times that Leonie is handier with a lance than a sword, and she’d only ever seen Byleth with a sword at her hip.

Turns out that mercenaries are an entirely different breed.

“Captain Jeralt,” Leonie wheezes out, her face throbbing and tears prickling the corners of her eyes against her will. She pushes herself up to her feet just to show that she’s fine. Not really, she kind of wants to throw up, but she’s fine. The thought of admitting defeat is somehow even worse. “It’s not her fault.”

“You’re bleeding,” Byleth comments.

“I— I told her to go all out. I didn’t think… she was _that_ strong, though.” Which was her own fault for believing otherwise. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

Jeralt stares at her, something that isn’t quite concern drawing his brows together. He brings a hand to his forehead and sighs with all the weariness in the world. Leonie’s stomach drops, heavy with shame, and she carefully wipes some of the blood away with the back of her hand. If she gets any on her clothes it’ll be a pain to scrub out. The laundry should be the least of her concerns, yet it’s all she can think of at that moment.

“Here’s another lesson for you,” Jeralt says, pulling a grayish handkerchief from his pocket and offering it to her. “Mercenaries aren’t afraid to fight dirty.”

“That’s what I thought,” she weakly laughs.

He turns to Byleth. “How’d she do, kid?”

“Not bad,” Byleth says, totally unconcerned that she likely would have beaten Leonie’s face into a pulpy mess had Jeralt not pulled her off. Anger flares behind Leonie’s eyes. Or maybe it’s just that searing pain. She wants to shout something or tackle Byleth or do _something_ that would get a bigger reaction than that _”not bad”_ and then shove Byleth’s face into the dirt to see how _she_ likes it and show her that just because she’s the Captain’s daughter doesn’t mean—

“Not bad,” Jeralt repeats, as if that makes perfect sense. “Yeah. You figured that Leonie could potentially gain the upper hand if you guys sparred with lances, didn’t you? So you were quick to disarm her and pin her down for an old-fashioned fistfight. Not bad.”

Leonie is at a sudden loss for words.

“Honor means squat when you’re fighting for your life,” Jeralt says. “You said you wanted Byleth to give you the experience of a real battle, so she did. Nice job, Leonie. It takes some serious skill to make this kid resort to using her fists.”

She still has no idea what to say.

* * *

The company is packing up and set to leave in the morning. Never before has time passed by so quickly, one day then two days becoming a whole month without notice, but a month like that feels like a year.

At the same time, it isn’t nearly enough.

But it is enough, because they’ve confirmed that no bandits are gonna be terrorizing the village again and they’re mercenaries. Mercenaries never stick around long, they move where the jobs are. That’s what Jeralt had said when Leonie pleaded with him to stay a little longer.

“Then… you can take me with you!” Leonie says, searching for any excuse or any reason. The company is spending their last evening at the tavern as a sort of last hurrah. That they haven’t completely drained the village of every last drop of ale and beer is short of an actual miracle. Jeralt didn’t intend it as a lesson, but Leonie had also found out that some people can knock back an inhuman amount of alcohol without dying or drowning themselves.

Jeralt casually throws his dagger at her. It whizzes past her ear and lodges itself into the wall behind her with a dull _thunk_. Leonie doesn’t even flinch.

“I don’t think so.”

“C’mon! There’s still so much for you to teach me!” Leonie yanks the dagger out of the wall. She doesn’t return it to Jeralt just yet. “You _told_ me that I’ve “exceeded your expectations” the other day. Isn’t that a good thing?!”

“You just want to come along so you can get your revenge on Byleth.”

Leonie consciously touches her face. She’d gone home with a bruised eye and lacerated skin and her mother was absolutely beside herself. Neither of her parents have been particularly worried when it came to her recent endeavors until now, but Jeralt and his company are finally leaving tomorrow, so. Good riddance! They said. But it wasn’t even his fault.

It was Leonie’s, for thinking she could take on a real genuine mercenary head-on with nothing but the basic fundamentals Jeralt had given her.

This isn't about her pride. Nothing about her original goals have changed one bit.

But Leonie’s shoulders sag. She sets the dagger down on the table beside Jeralt’s tankard. “… Are you mad at me?”

“I’m not,” Jeralt says, and that’s the truth, because Leonie knows that the Captain never gets angry when he’s had a couple drinks. He throws the dagger past her ear again. Again, Leonie trots over to retrieve it. “But I need to ask. Why did you challenge her in the first place?”

Because she wanted to put her new skills to the test. Because Leonie wanted to practice against someone who grew up under the Captain’s care. Because Leonie sort of can’t stand Byleth but at the same time, can’t actually stay furious at her eccentricities for longer than a few fleeting moments, which is even more infuriating in of itself.

Jeralt can be surly and gruff and even kind of an asshole at times, and he drinks too much, but it didn’t take long for Leonie to figure out how to read him. His daughter, on the other hand, is as vague as a cloudy night with no moon or stars. It frustrates Leonie. What kind of person is the Captain’s daughter? Why does the Captain never talk about her? Why does Byleth never blink when she stares at Leonie?

If she really wants to understand Captain Jeralt, then it should only make sense that she needs to understand his child as well.

Leonie drops the dagger in front of him. “I think… I just wanted to get to know her better.”

Jeralt pauses with his arm cocked back, about to hurl the dagger again. He raises one brow and cocks his head. “Huh?”

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“Huh.” Jeralt evidently isn’t going to drop the matter, though. He taps the flat side of the blade against his chin in thought, leaning back in his seat until the front legs of the chair lift off the floor. “Color me surprised.”

“Surprised about what?”

“No one’s taken an interest in my kid before. Not even my own men will go near her at the best of times.” He stabs the table, leaving the dagger sticking out of the wood perfectly upright. A passing barmaid shoots him a dirty look but neither of them pay her any mind. “Maybe you’re as much of an oddball as she is.”

Come to think of it, Leonie had never even seen Byleth in the tavern before, not even when the entire company manages to cram themselves in for a night of drinks and merrymaking. She’s not here tonight, either; Leonie doesn’t see her among all the other mercenaries.

Leonie shakes her head so fast that her chopped, uneven locks of hair swish back and forth. “Captain, I think we’re getting way off topic. I’m asking you to let me join your company.”

“And I already said I’m not bringing you along.”

“But why not?! I want to join you to keep learning from you, not because of— I’m not upset about Byleth beating me today! That’s already water under the bridge!”

For a split second, Jeralt almost looks sad when he looks at her, but it could just be the poor lighting. Or he’s had a bit too much to drink by now. Then again, there’s always been some sort of melancholy weight always dragging down the corners of his mouth into stern frowns.

“You have more ambition and passion than I know how to deal with.” Jeralt takes a long, long gulp from his tankard. “I take back what I said. You’re nothing like my daughter.”

“I’m… not sure how I’m supposed to take that.”

He waves a hand dismissively. “You’re a good student, Leonie. Granted, you’re the only student I’ve ever had, but you’re alright.”

Oh. Captain Jeralt really is drunk after all.

“Speak of the devil!” Jeralt shouts so suddenly that Leonie jumps, and she jumps again when Byleth leans over to pluck the dagger from the table. He lifts an arm and slaps his hand down on worn wood, half-grimacing and half-grinning. “Kid. You’re late to the party.”

“I guess.”

“What’re you doing here?”

Leonie’s face is throbbing with the fresh memory of being pummeled. Blood pools to her cheeks and she fights off that inexplicable anger rising in her throat, once again reminding herself that she’s not supposed to be angry in spite of it all. Byleth’s head turns as smoothly as an owl’s, her body leaned over the table. That’s— ugh. It’s creepy. Leonie bites her tongue.

“Are you alright?” Byleth asks, entirely impassive. Her eyes flick ever so slightly as she scans Leonie’s face, no doubt scrutinizing her bruises. They hurt, but they’re not the worst injuries Leonie’s ever had.

“… Yeah?”

Byleth nods, apparently satisfied with that answer. She straightens up and reaches into her back pocket, and produces a fistful of flowers with clumps of dirt still dangling from the roots. Leonie recognizes those flowers. They grow by the riverbank like weeds. Byleth pushes the flowers at Leonie and Leonie, too confused to refuse, accepts them.

Byleth nods again. “For you.”

“Um.” Leonie turns to Jeralt, but he’s busy knocking back his tankard. “Thanks…?”

Then Byleth swivels on her heels and walks away, leaving Leonie awkwardly clutching the flowers. Jeralt had finally set down his tankard, and now she realizes he was probably doing that on purpose to exclude himself from that bizarre exchange.

“Hey Leonie, congrats. You’re the first friend my kid’s ever made.”

“ _What?_ ”

* * *

As usual, she finds the Captain fishing at the pond before dawn while a chilly fog hangs low over everything and hungover mercenaries snore in their tents. The sun isn’t even out yet. Leonie remembers what one of them had told her, about how the Captain never seems to get hangovers even after a night of nonstop drinking. It never seemed like a particularly important detail to dwell over, but after being thoroughly trounced by Byleth, she has to wonder.

“You’re up early, Captain Jeralt.” She sits down beside him, dangling her feet over the edge of the dock. Jeralt greets her with a grunt of acknowledgment.

The company is leaving today. Sauin Village will resume life as normal and then winter will come, and they’ll have plenty of food stored away thanks to the mercenaries getting rid of those bandits.

Leonie doesn’t want to imagine going back to that ordinary, uneventful life.

“Last night, when I asked you why you won’t let me join your company, you said I have too much passion and ambition,” she says. And then Byleth showed up and gave her some dirty flowers and that was apparently a declaration of friendship, but that’s not what she wants to focus on right now. Jeralt doesn’t move, but he loudly sniffs and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “Look, I know that I’m not well-versed in the ways of the world outside my village, but…”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?!”

Jeralt’s fishing line is perfectly still. The water isn’t even stirring. Yet he sits here anyway morning after morning even when the fish never bite. Leonie became accustomed to this routine of waking up before the sun, getting dressed, and braving the morning chill to join him out here. Through these moments she had found a new appreciation for fishing.

Sometimes Byleth would be out here as well, sitting beside her father with her own fishing rod in hand.

“I can’t take you away from your village, Leonie,” Jeralt quietly says. “Don’t you feel even a little bit hesitant about leaving this place?”

“Well, sure. I’d miss my parents and all the other townspeople a lot. But there’s a whole world out there for me to see, and you have so much more to teach me. I’ve already decided I’m gonna be a mercenary just like you.”

“Joining my company right now isn’t the path for you to take if you want to accomplish those things.”

Leonie would feel inclined to argue, but this _is_ Captain Jeralt, the mercenary who saved her village and taught her a thousand new things she would have never learned had she not strong-armed him into accepting her as his apprentice. If anyone would know better, it’d be him. But a small seed of doubt takes root nonetheless, leaving her questioning and unsatisfied.

A dragonfly dips low over the water. It’s completely quiet out here, save for the soft rustling of leaves disturbed by wind.

“Don’t leave your parents.” Jeralt’s knuckles turn white around his fishing rod. “I envy what they have. It’d be wrong of me to take you from them.”

“Captain…?”

“I meant it when I said you’re a good student, but I can’t be the only person you learn from. There are a lot more mercenaries in Fódlan other than me, some of them probably stronger.”

“Like… Byleth?”

He leans back and lets out a long exhale, his breath fogging before his face. “That kid is gonna overtake me one day, that’s for sure. Thanks, by the way. For befriending her.”

“Um, I wasn’t really trying to do that, but I’m glad it worked out that way.”

“You said you wanted to get to know her better, right? Sorry to say, but Byleth isn’t exactly well-versed in the art of conversation, much less talking about herself.” Jeralt rubs his thumbs along the handle in thought, drawing a knee up to his chest. “But I guess that’s what I’m here for, as her father. I know her better than anyone else.”

Leonie hasn’t forgotten the scant few pieces of gossip she got out of the other mercenaries either. A weirdo. Doesn’t talk. Stay away from her. It didn’t seem fair at all, hearing them talk about the Captain’s daughter like that, but now she understands where they’re all coming from.

But then Byleth gave her those flowers after giving her a taste of a real fight and now she doesn’t know what to think.

“There are some things I can’t tell you about her,” Jeralt says. “But I can tell you that she really means no harm.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Are you alright with being her friend?” Jeralt looks directly at her now, frowning as always but something almost _desperate_ in his eyes, making Leonie waver. She eventually finds her answer not for him, but for herself. And maybe for Byleth, too.

“Of course I am. She’s weird and I can never tell what she’s thinking, and sometimes I think she’s downright rude, but she’s your daughter. That’s good enough for me, I think.”

“Great.” Jeralt turns back to face the water, shoulders relaxing. “She’ll be happy to hear it.”

Leonie goes silent for a minute that seems to stretch into an hour. Some crickets chirp somewhere in the tall grass and another dragonfly passes across the pond. No fish are biting. Now's about the time when most people in the village would be waking up, too. Her parents will also be waking up, and maybe they'll wonder where their daughter had gone before remembering that that mercenary captain likes to fish before the sun's up and Leonie had made it part of her routine to meet him every time. 

They of all people would understand her untamable passions and ambitions. She doubts they would seriously try to stop her, but at the same time, she can envision the looks on their faces if she declared that she intends to join Jeralt's Mercenaries.

She wonders what sort of face Jeralt would make if Byleth were to leave him. 

"... I get it, Captain. I'll stay with my village until I'm actually ready to leave."

Jeralt grunts in approval, and that's that. 

* * *

Their horses and wagons are all loaded up and ready to head out. Jeralt presses a small wooden thing into Leonie’s palm, carved into something that suggests he intended it to be a flower then changed his mind at some point and tried to make it look like a fish. Leonie grips it tightly and nods up at him, and he nods back down at her.

“Keep at it, Leonie.”

“Will do!”

“Hey, looks like the kid also has something for you,” he says, looking past her. She turns around and sure enough, Byleth is striding over, already extending a fist to drop something onto the hand Leonie automatically puts out.

It’s a fishing lure, all scuffed up and the colors faded.

“Isn’t that one your favorite?” Jeralt asks Byleth, and Byleth mutely nods.

The other villagers wave after them with calls of final thank you’s. Leonie is at the front of the small crowd, shouting something that they can’t quite hear over everyone else, but it probably doesn’t matter. They don’t look back. Mercenaries shouldn’t look back. At least Jeralt had the foresight to impart that final bit of wisdom to Leonie, so she won’t feel too torn up about it. Hopefully.

Byleth stares straight ahead and her expression slowly changes. Jeralt leans forward to get a better look, incredulous.

“Huh. This is the first time I’ve seen you smile like that.”


	3. thrill of the hunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 3: Hunter
> 
> White Clouds time! i'm planning for this to lead into the Crimson Flower route. if anyone has any objections or suggestions or input i'm happy to hear them.

“People and beasts are as one. Calm your heart, and do not be worried about this killing.”

“I’m not…” Leonie turns around, only then realizing that Petra isn’t speaking to her. Linhardt is hunched over on the ground, heaving violently until vomit splatters at his knees. Someone else is running over; Dorothea crouches and lays a hand on Linhardt’s shoulder, and he shakily nods to her.

Only about a meter away, a dead bandit lies in a spreading puddle of his own blood.

“How can you compare them to _beasts_ so casually?” Linhardt mutters, accepting Dorothea’s handkerchief to wipe at his mouth.

“Bandits or not, they’re still… people. I know what you mean, Lin. Petra, can you let Professor Jeritza know I’m taking Lin to the backlines? We mages shouldn’t even be at the forefront, anyway.” Dorothea supports Linhardt’s weight with one arm wrapped around his torso. They walk away back the way they came from, and Leonie has half a mind to shout at them to watch their backs or at least take someone else with them because there are other bandits they haven’t taken out yet.

The air is electric with the tension of their first mission. It would technically be the _Black Eagles’_ first mission, but then Leonie had found herself requested to come along as an adjutant.

Byleth’s adjutant, specifically.

Then Leonie had noticed a bandit running around their formation, which had been sloppy enough already in between Professor Jeritza’s half-assed instructions and Ferdinand and Caspar running off by themselves with excited battle cries, and, well. She couldn’t just stand there and let that bandit go after that scrawny, frail mage boy who’d been yawning ever since they left the monastery.

So she let Byleth run ahead, lagging behind for the right opportunity to kill the bandit.

Just like they’re supposed to, right?

“You think they’ll be okay?” Leonie asks Petra, because Petra is the only witness and the only other person around.

“As I said, it is nothing to have worries about.” Petra walks past the dead bandit and leans down to pull the arrow out of his chest without breaking her stride, holding it out to Leonie. “Here. We cannot be wasting good arrows.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks,” Leonie says. Linhardt’s face had gone so pale and green, somehow at the same time, when the bandit fell.

“You are a hunter, too,” Petra says, steely eyes trained on her face like a hawk. Leonie is nearly unnerved, but she holds Petra’s gaze and stares back resolutely. “I have been observing your movements. They are not similar to the movements of the other students.”

“Nice instincts. I come from a small hunting village in the Alliance. So I guess you’re also a hunter— it’s nice meeting someone else like me! Er, kind of like me.” She can’t hold back a smile, despite their current circumstances. One of them _should_ run after Dorothea and Linhardt to make sure they’re alright, and Professor Jeritza still needs to be notified of what happened. Besides, Byleth is sort of her responsibility, Leonie had figured.

They may not be in the same class, but Leonie had kept that old fishing lure all these years.

“A kindred spirit.” Petra smiles back.

“But… am I supposed to feel anything?” Her heart is thumping and her palms are slick with sweat, but her knees are rock-steady and her breakfast is sitting firmly in her stomach. “This is my first kill. This is what I’ve been training for! It’s exciting! But I… I don’t know what I’m supposed to _feel_ after killing someone. What do you think, Petra?”

Petra tilts her head. “I am thinking… that this is not different from a hunt.”

“A hunt…”

“The bandits are our prey. We are to be hunting them down.” Petra looks up to the sky, listening to that melancholy wind that blows through the canyon. Somewhere in the distance, Caspar’s shouting echoes off a cliff face. “If you are thinking differently, you cannot be hunting with a clear head.”

“They’re animals,” Leonie mumbles, staring at the bloodstained arrow in her grasp. “No different from a boar or deer.”

Petra nods. “Lives are precious in many ways, Leonie. Do not forget.”

* * *

Byleth plops down beside her in the dining hall during dinnertime. She has three full plates of food balanced on her arm, which Leonie raises a brow at, but she certainly wouldn’t begrudge someone for eating their fill when there’s so much food abundant in this place. Also— _they’re allowed to take that much? If she’d known that earlier…!_

“Tired,” Byleth simply says, setting the plates down and leaning against Leonie.

“ _Maybe_ if you stuck close to me, I could’ve given you backup and you wouldn’t have exhausted yourself,” Leonie says, lightly jabbing her with an elbow.

“Join my class.”

“I’m a Deer, Byleth. If you really wanted to be in the same class, you could’ve picked the Golden Deer instead of the Black Eagles. You _did_ have a say in the matter, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And even if I had the chance to join the Eagles, why would I? I like my classmates and I’d have to convince Professor Jeritza to let me transfer aside from Professor Manuela, anyway. That’s way too much hassle. Also… don’t tell anyone, but your professor gives me some really weird vibes. I don’t know what’s up with him, but he definitely seems shady to me.”

Byleth has apparently decided that that’s more than enough conversation for the evening. She’s shoveling food into her mouth with two spoons, one in each hand, so fast that Leonie’s mildly concerned she might choke and die right there before anyone around them could even react.

When Leonie had come to Garreg Mach, she really hadn’t been expecting to find the Captain and his daughter here. It must be fate, surely! If she believed in stuff like that. At any rate, it had been a reunion that sent her over the moon for a full two days, drifting in that cloud of perpetual happiness before reality set in with seminars and homework and textbooks to pore over.

And then the Black Eagles’ mission in the Red Canyon, where Leonie killed another human being for the very first time.

No matter how hard she thinks about it, it doesn’t bother her. Does that mean something is wrong with her? Both Linhardt and Dorothea had gone pale at the sight of the dead bandit, and they’re healthy well-adjusted people (as far as Leonie can tell). What does that make her, then?

A hunter, apparently.

It can’t be _that_ wrong to feel proud of herself. It was a perfectly clean shot.

“Mind if I join you?”

Byleth hasn’t stopped shoveling down her food, so it’s up to Leonie to answer. She automatically nods, only pausing when she notices it’s _Edelgard von Hresvelg_ who’s asking. Too late, though; Edelgard takes the seat across from them with her own tray of food, notably smaller than either Byleth or Leonie’s portions.

“My, you two certainly have an appetite,” Edelgard notes, spreading her napkin over her lap.

“Yeah, we do. Got a problem with it?” Leonie says, on guard for reasons she can’t even explain herself.

Edelgard starts to laugh, then catches herself and resigns herself to a somewhat awkward chuckle. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just… trying to make conversation. Apologies.”

“S’fine,” Byleth says with her mouth full.

“I wanted to congratulate you two regarding our class assignment today,” Edelgard says. “Your performance was exceptional. Even the Professor was impressed.”

Byleth swallows her food with a loud gulp. “And you?”

“And— yes, I’ll admit I was rather impressed as well. I saw the way you took down that bandit who was going after Linhardt, Leonie. Your aim is impeccable. No wonder Byleth requested that you tag along with our class.”

Ah, thanks.” Leonie rubs the back of her neck. Sharing the same space with nobles was jarring enough at first, but now they’re _complimenting_ her. Great. “I was just doing what I always do.”

“You’ve fought in battles before?”

“No, not at all. I’m from a hunting village in the Alliance. You kind of have to learn to hone your skills out there if you wanna contribute and survive,” she says. She was just doing what she always does. She focuses on her target, aims, and fires. That’s all. “Captain Jeralt also mentored me a long time ago.”

“I see.” Edelgard slowly nods. Wait, her plate is already empty. When did she even eat? Leonie was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice. Edelgard gathers her dishes and silverware onto the tray and stands up. “I have to say, your skills would be invaluable to my… our class, Leonie. Maybe I’ll speak to Professor Jeritza and Professor Manuela about a transfer. I know Byleth would be pleased if you joined us as well.”

“No, thanks,” Leonie firmly says. “I’m happy with the Golden Deer.”

“That’s a shame. I’ll be seeing you around, then.”

Byleth lifts a hand to wave her off, mouth full. She looks to Leonie questioningly, to which she only shrugs.

“If it’ll make you happy, I’ll come along on more of your class assignments as your adjutant. But I’m _not_ transferring.”

Maybe she ought to see if Petra would join her class, though.


	4. think like a mercenary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 4: Mercenary
> 
> battle of the eagle and lion! and deer. this is my very first attempt at writing claude.

“We can use the cover of the forest to our advantage,” Claude says, tracing a finger over his map. “Whoever takes the ballista first will turn the tides of the battle. I’m betting that Edelgard is thinking the same thing, so her class is probably gonna cross the central bridge to make a beeline for it… hm, but I wouldn’t put it past her to split them up, even if it’s a risky move. If they send a couple students to the eastern bridge and down south our way, it could cause some trouble. What do you guys think?”

Everyone stares at him. Except for Lysithea, but she’s glaring at the map and mumbling to herself so no one pays her any mind. Leonie’s first thought is, _what would Captain Jeralt do?_ But he had never bothered teaching her the finer points of war strategy. There wasn’t any need to know things like that in a village where the smartest enemies they faced were hungry bears looking for an easy snack.

What would a mercenary do, then? She puts a hand to her chin and looks back down at the map.

“What do _we_ think?” Hilda nervously laughs. “You’re the mastermind here, Claude. Not like any of us could come up with a plan better than yours.”

“Er, I think…” Ignatz presses a fingertip down. “We could position three infantrymen to the north right here to mitigate that issue. They’ll be able to spot any approaching Eagles before they can even cross the bridge.”

Claude claps him on the shoulder. “Nice thinking.”

“You’re not taking the Blue Lions into account,” Lysithea says, still glaring at the map in deep thought. “There’s nothing but wide, open space south of the ballista. They’re probably going to try to take it from there while simultaneously breaking our formation.”

“Right you are. So, how do you propose we intercept them?”

Then Lorenz speaks up, and all hell breaks loose.

Leonie likes her class, really. They have character and charm and some of them may get on her nerves but it’s just… easy to get along with them at the best of times. Even at the worst of times, like right now, when Lorenz is trying to strong-arm the (metaphorical) reins out of Claude’s grasp and Raphael is _this_ close to wandering off because he had just loudly declared he’s too hungry for this, it’s fun.

Ignatz helplessly looks to Leonie and she shoots him a lopsided smile of sympathy. Lorenz and Claude are arguing directly over his head, harmonizing with Hilda’s groans.

“Hey. Hey! Pipe down, I’d like to make a suggestion,” Leonie shouts.

Miraculously, Lorenz tapers off and stops trying to tell Claude why his plan will only lead them to a swift failure and this is why he cannot be trusted in a position of leadership and blah blah blah. Claude makes a sort of sweeping bowing gesture, opening the floor to Leonie. She clears her throat.

“Let’s trap them.” Leonie rolls her eyes at Hilda’s bemusement. “The Black Eagles, I mean. I can set up some rudimentary traps among the trees by the river. I obviously don’t have enough time to dig pits by tomorrow or find bear traps— not that we’d even be allowed to use them, I bet— but some snares and wire trips should slow them down. Then, picking them off one by one should be easy enough.”

She isn’t a hundred percent sure of a mercenary’s strategy, but at least she can be certain of what a hunter would do.

“This is to be a battle, not a _sporting hunt!_ ” Lorenz sputters.

Claude shushes him with a wave of his hand. “No, no, I like what Leonie’s saying. Actually, I was considering something similar, but… well, a bit of chemical warfare _may_ penalize us if they realize what happened, and I don’t think Lorenz would keep his mouth shut about it now that I’ve mentioned it out loud.”

Lorenz sputters again. “ _Chemical warfare?!_ ”

“Ooh, you mean like poison?” Leonie grins, leaning over the table. “That’s sneaky, Claude.”

“Nothing lethal! Just a little something to upset their stomachs. They can’t put up a fight if they’re trying to hold in their breakfast, right?”

“Smart. We’d sometimes use tainted feed to lure out game and incapacitate them, back where I’m from.”

“You get me.” Claude snaps his fingers, ignoring Lorenz’s indignant protesting. “But just the traps are going to have to do. I’ll help you make them tonight. Hilda will lend a hand, too.”

“Excuse me? I’m going to _what?_ ”

“And I’ll blast the Blue Lions to smithereens before they can even get near the ballista,” Lysithea mutters, but no one hears her except for Marianne, who not-so-subtly shuffles over to hide behind Raphael’s broad figure.

* * *

As it turns out, Hilda finds a convenient excuse to ditch trap-making duty, so Claude shows up at Leonie’s room by himself. He pauses rather noticeably when he sees the person-shaped lump sitting on Leonie’s bed.

“Uh…”

“Don’t worry, Byleth is great at keeping secrets,” Leonie says, dumping a small armful of wood she’d swiped from the communal firewood pile. “She won’t tell anyone from the Black Eagles what we’re up to.”

“And how can you know that for sure? No offense, but I’m not exactly inclined to trust someone from one of the classes we’re supposed to be fighting tomorrow.”

Byleth puts her thumb and forefinger together, and drags them over her mouth in a zipping gesture.

“… You’re going to have to do more than that to convince me.” Still, Claude sighs and enters the room, closing the door behind him. “C’mon, Leonie. You’re the last person I would’ve ever suspected of leaking sensitive information to the enemy.”

“It’s fine!” Leonie insists, grabbing two whittling knives from her desk. “I’ve known Byleth since we were kids… sort of. I mean, not for long, but her dad mentored me for almost an entire month when his mercenary band stayed at my village. Byleth doesn’t talk. Believe me.”

“Yup.” Byleth nods.

Claude moves like an animal creeping out into an open clearing, wary and on guard. He eyes Byleth as he sits on the floor beside Leonie, taking up one of the whittling knives and a hunk of wood.

“So she’s a mercenary, huh?”

“Yeah! Her dad is the _strongest_ guy I’ve ever met,” Leonie says, and Claude almost seems taken aback at that sudden enthusiasm. “His company pretty much saved my village from ruin. If it weren’t for them, those poachers would’ve burned us down to the ground. He’s the reason why I’ve decided to become a mercenary, you know.”

“Oh? I didn’t know that’s what you’re aiming for. I kind of assumed you wanted to be a knight, like Ignatz and Raphael.” Claude squints at the hook and base Leonie had already prepped beforehand. That should be easy enough to copy.

“Why would I want to be a knight?”

“Good pay and steady employment?” Claude shrugs with one shoulder. “Knighthood isn’t my thing either, but it seems like that’s what a lot of people are here at the academy for. I’ve watched you enough in mock battles to know that you could easily land yourself a squireship if you wanted to. That Alois fellow already took a liking to you, and he’s got a nice cushy spot up there with the Knights of Seiros.”

“I mean, I guess I _could._ ” Leonie rubs the back of her neck, then leans over to correct Claude’s hands when she notices he’s cutting the wood too deeply. “I never considered knighthood. Not even when I found out that Captain Jeralt is here as a knight.”

“Yeah? Can I ask why?”

Good question. She’d never felt the compulsion to think too hard about her endeavors ever since Jeralt had planted those seeds in her mind five years ago. Hearing about Raphael’s dreams and Ignatz’s struggles changed nothing about how she felt, nor did sparring with Ingrid Brandl Galatea and listening to her woes. But if she had to put it in words, then…

“I’d rather be my own boss. I don’t wanna be at the beck and call of some stuffy noble who’s only concerned about protecting his own coffers.”

“Oh? And what about the Knights of Seiros?”

“I don’t know, serving the Church doesn’t really seem my style. Even Captain Jeralt doesn’t seem that happy whenever I get to talk to him.” Leonie looks over to Byleth, but Byleth is staring blankly ahead. As she usually does, then. She can’t tell if Byleth is listening or if she’d completely tuned them out. “… There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a mercenary.”

“Haha, I didn’t mean it like that.” Claude’s easygoing smile is way too disarming. “You’ve got strong ambitions, not to mention the skills to back yourself as your own person. That’s all you really need, right?”

“Money is still going to be an issue…”

“Ooh, right. Hilda mentioned you’re awfully stingy.”

“Stingy—! I guess that’s one way to put it. So what? Everyone else is just wasteful in comparison.” Leonie huffs. The lantern light glints off the short blade of her whittling knife, and she stares down at the small pile of triggers she’d carved so far. Claude is still working on his third one. “Only Raphael and Ignatz really understand how hard it was to get here. Thanks, by the way. For not brushing off my idea earlier at the strategy meeting.”

“Don’t mention it. Cooperation is vital if we're going to win tomorrow's battle.”

The sheets are rustling. Byleth is snaking over on her belly, arms flopping over the side of the bed. She reaches down to pluck up one of the pieces Claude had carved, scrutinizing it.

“… Sloppy.”

“Ouch?”

“Hey, don’t be rude! If you’re going to judge, get down here and help us make more. I’ll start prepping the wires.”

* * *

“– _Yarrgh!_ ” Caspar shouts, effectively giving away their position. His leg is yanked out from underneath him with a sharp _thwip._

“What the— stay alert! Remain calm, don’t break formation!” Edelgard calls out, and curses under her breath. Ferdinand, Petra, and Dorothea should be helping Bernadetta get to the ballista right about now, which would have been the opportune time for the rest of them to attack the Golden Deers’ flank, but then… this.

“Wire snares,” Hubert snarls. “Watch your footing.”

“Oh,” Byleth says, helping Caspar free his leg. “I made this one.”

Edelgard puts a hand to her forehead and groans.

* * *

The feast is as extravagant as a feast hosted at Garreg Mach could be, with overflowing platters of food and too many tureens to count. Some students are pretending to get drunk on the cider. There’s shouting and singing and a small group had started an impromptu dance between the tables, merrily bumping into each other. Red, blue, and yellow uniforms commingle into an incomprehensible mess.

“Congratulations to the Golden Deer!” someone yells, and there’s another chorus of cheers and glasses clinking against each other.

Leonie fights the urge to squirrel away some food into her pockets.

She spots Claude on the other side of the hall, talking to Edelgard with Hubert standing (menacingly) behind her, but he doesn’t seem to be deterred at all. Her house leader sure is something. It would almost be a shame to leave this place once she graduates, but by then she would hopefully have more than enough connections to kickstart her career as a mercenary.

But really, all she’d need is Captain Jeralt’s blessing.

“Food,” Byleth announces, claiming the seat beside Leonie. She hands a buttery bread roll to Leonie. For once, she seems visibly happy.

“Nothing like a big meal to cap off a full day of fighting, huh?” Leonie shoves the entire roll into her mouth, and Byleth mirrors her with another bread roll she procured out of nowhere.

“More like hunting.”

“Oh, yeah? How many traps did you set off?”

Byleth holds up four fingers. “All by Caspar.”

“Haha! I wish I could’ve been there to see it.”

“You still think like a hunter,” Byleth says matter-of-factly, then she’s already leaving to snatch more bread rolls from other tables.

Leonie blinks. Like a hunter… then what would a mercenary do? The two aren’t mutually exclusive, anyway. Would a mercenary have charged head-in and used brute force to win the battle? No, that’s what meatheads like Raphael do (no offense to Raphael). It would be a matter of strategy, then. Yes, strategy. She used the only methods she knows because… that’s all she knows. They worked! But what if they didn’t? Claude probably had a back-up plan for the worst-case scenarios, but Leonie didn’t even think that far ahead.

Looks like she still has a lot to learn while she’s at the academy, then. Leonie stands up and goes to join Byleth in hoarding the bread rolls.


	5. twice challenged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 5: Challenger
> 
> a day late......... 
> 
> this chapter isn't nearly as light-hearted as the previous one, whoops bye jeralt

At the late hours past the academy’s curfew and _way_ past Leonie’s self-imposed bedtime, the streets and taverns of the adjacent town are empty. For the most part. Someone is snoring outside in the gutters, and heavy footsteps from guests on the second floor send dust falling from the ceiling. Jeralt is already on his fourth tankard with no signs of slowing down.

This takes her back to when she had met the Captain for the first time and demanded to be his apprentice. But it’s quiet and lonely here, without the company of his mercenaries and the warmth of the townspeople she grew up with. And she’s not a kid anymore.

Captain Jeralt bears shadows under his eyes. They’d been like that ever since what had happened in Remire Village.

“I forgot how old you are. You’re old enough to drink, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but one of us has to stay sober if we’re going to make it back to the monastery tonight.” Maybe it’s because she’s older now, but Leonie doesn’t feel quite as shy about telling him off for things like that now. Something like that normally wouldn’t be any of her business, but this _is_ Captain Jeralt.

“Right…” He had to have invited her out here for a reason, though. Jeralt doesn’t have drinks just for pointless smalltalk or to gain the favor of others, like Byleth’s constant tea parties. Byleth isn’t here anyway, and Jeralt had deliberately shaken off Alois when he tried to follow them.

She should feel a sense of pride that Captain Jeralt wanted to spend some time with her alone, but all she feels is apprehension gathering in her gut.

“Did you want to talk about what happened?” Leonie asks. “I heard about Tomas. I can’t believe he betrayed us… you don’t think there are other traitors hiding in the monastery, do you? Is that what this is about?”

“He definitely wasn’t the only one,” Jeralt gravely says, lowering his voice. “Listen to me, Leonie.”

“Yes…?”

“Don’t trust them.”

“Don’t trust _who?_ ”

Oh, no, he must be already drunk. His eyes are unfocused and his lips move like a drowning fish as he struggles to find the right words. “The… he called himself the Flame Emperor. He was at the village and showed up back when Flayn was kidnapped. I think he was behind both incidents.”

Byleth had vaguely mentioned something like that, now that Leonie thinks about it. “So this ‘Flame Emperor’ could be someone working inside the Church or in the academy, just like Tomas was… alright, Captain Jeralt. I’ll help you figure out who it is, and we’ll stop them before another Remire Village happens. You can count on me.”

“No.” He shakes his head, rubbing his temples with his knuckles. “I’d rather you didn’t put yourself in danger on my behalf. These aren’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill bandits.”

“I’m not going to sit by and do nothing after you tell me something like that! You know I’d do anything to help!”

“We don’t know enough—“ Jeralt’s jaw is clenched. He glances around them, but nobody is within earshot. The tavern keeper’s back is turned as he’s busy reorganizing some bottles. Outside, that drunkard continues snoring away. “I brought you here because I need to ask something of you.”

Leonie straightens up in her seat.

“Take care of Byleth for me. Promise me you’ll look after her.”

“… Huh? What are you saying, Captain…?”

“The kid’s made new friends among her classmates, but you’re the only one I’d trust with her life. I know this is selfish, but I need to know she’ll have someone standing at her side and watching her back when I’m gone.”

Leonie’s heart begins to race. _When he’s_ — he can’t possibly be saying… no, no, he’s just drunk. Ridiculous. Or this is his idea of a weird joke, booze-induced and lacking judgment. It’s not funny. Her head suddenly feels like it’s on fire. He’s talking like he’s about to uncover some great conspiracy and those conspirators lurking in the shadows are going to kill him for what he knows. Things like that don’t happen in real life! They’re no more real than campfire stories about lizards disguised as humans!

More than that, nobody could kill _the_ Captain Jeralt. It’s unthinkable. He’d always been untouchable and invincible, but now she sees his bloodshot eyes and how sallow his cheeks had become. Leonie grips the front of her shirt, where she feels the shape of that wooden charm Jeralt had given her all those years ago.

… If somebody could infiltrate the monastery and kidnap Seteth’s daughter _and_ burn an entire village into ruin in a single day, then maybe a grand conspiracy birthed from the shadows isn’t too farfetched. Oh, Goddess. What is he getting himself into?

“Stop talking like that, Captain. You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“The Flame Emperor has his sights set on the kid and I don’t know why. Please, Leonie.”

He’s drunk, but not _that_ drunk. Why does he drink so much, anyway? Leonie never thought to ask.

“You’re acting like you’re giving up already!”

“I’m not giving up, but I don’t even know what I’d be going up against if I poke my nose into places where it shouldn’t be. I can’t guarantee my own safety if I keep digging into this shadowy group the Flame Emperor is leading. You have to understand— there’s nobody else I could ask, not even Alois, and the kid would probably do something reckless and stupid if I told her I could be in danger. You’re my first and only apprentice, aren’t you?”

“I… fine. Alright.” There are a thousand running thoughts that would knock her off balance if she were to keep arguing in circles. She can’t fall apart in front of the Captain, not right now. He needs somebody to rely on, and she fully understands the heavy gravity of her position. It isn’t something to be happy about. “You have my word as your apprentice. I’ll watch Byleth if… _if_ something happens to you.”

Jeralt raises his tankard, then lowers it after a pause of reconsideration. When he looks into her eyes, Leonie sees a window of clarity. He speaks so lowly that she has to lean forward to hear what he says next.

“A word of advice, Leonie. Don’t trust the Archbishop.”

* * *

“Hey… this is the first time I’ve seen you cry like that.”

* * *

_The Flame Emperor will pay for what he had done...!_

* * *

“I’m sorry, Leonie.”

* * *

The rain falls suddenly and heavily, sending all the cats and dogs running for shelter in the rooms of students who don’t mind the smell of wet fur. The horses anxiously toss their heads in the stables, only calmed when Marianne slips in with a bag of carrots and water dripping down her nose. Classes have been postponed. No one’s in the mood. Professor Manuela is urging them to seek her out for counseling, but Leonie doesn’t see the point in talking things out.

The soles of her boots are worn and offer little traction when the training grounds have become muddy and slippery. Even Felix had become fed up by the rain and left some time ago, leaving Leonie angrily hacking and slashing at a straw-stuffed effigy. Her fingers burn from gripping her lance so tightly. Like that night at the oak tree outside her village, when she couldn’t hold on and fell— 

“Leonie.”

Byleth is watching from beside one of the columns, hair plastered to her face by the rain.

That’s right, Byleth is still here. And Leonie has a promise to keep. They aren’t the only ones in mourning; sitting around and wallowing isn’t going to do anything to make sure the Captain died for no reason.

Even though it really does seem that way.

“Spar?”

She throws her lance aside. Byleth had shed her coat, leaving it lying in a puddle.

The first hit doesn’t register, only the force of the impact.

Captain Jeralt _couldn’t_ have died for no reason. Someone like him doesn’t get randomly picked off because some lunatic felt like shoving a knife into the back of whoever was standing closest to them. It was the Flame Emperor, obviously. Then Byleth said it was actually Monica— the same Monica who had been rescued alongside Flayn! In hindsight, nothing was obvious. But in hindsight, they should have asked more about what had happened to her during that year she went missing. Was it a case of brainwashing? Was she always a traitor and the kidnapping a mere ruse? Or something else entirely?

Leonie finally lands a punch, right across her jaw. Byleth lets out a soft grunt.

Somewhere in that web of deceit and lies and secrets, the Flame Emperor sits at the center like a grotesque spider. She’s sure of it. So that means Captain Jeralt did find something he wasn’t supposed to, just like he said. Why couldn’t she have taken him more seriously that night? Stupid, stupid. Stupid.

The ground connects with her back. No, the other way around. Byleth pins one shoulder down with a knee, her other foot pressing painfully upon Leonie’s sternum.

Back then, Leonie was the one who had challenged her and lost miserably. Today, Byleth initiated the challenge herself. And Leonie still lost.

Captain Jeralt isn’t here to pull Byleth off this time, but no punches rain down on her face.

“Don’t cry, Leonie.”

“I’m not— get off. It’s just the rain.” Byleth should be the one who’s crying, not her. The moment that weight lets up, Leonie flips her around and grapples her into the slick ground, shoving her face down and.

And she lets go. And she falls back into a sitting position, breathing heavily and trying not to get any wet dirt into her eyes when she brushes her hair away. Byleth doesn’t bother wiping any of the dirt off her face as she slowly gets up, shuffling over to sit beside her.

“… Why are we fighting?” Leonie sighs.

“To spar.”

She should hate Byleth for being unable to protect her father. Jeralt. Byleth was _there_ with him and witnessed everything. That girl possesses a power beyond Leonie’s understanding, dragging her far above those olden days when they’d fish at Jeralt’s sides and Leonie would get the stuffing beat out of her every time she challenged Byleth with no hope of winning. Byleth is strong, maybe even stronger than the Captain was. What good is that power if it can’t be used to save her own father?

But it isn’t like Leonie could have done anything either, if Byleth couldn’t with both a Crest and the Sword of the Creator.

So maybe she should hate her, but she never actually could. The rain is relentless, soaking into both of them; Leonie sneezes, only just realizing how ridiculous they both must look right now.

“You’ll catch cold.”

“I know, I know.” The rain is also a convenient excuse to sniffle and wipe at her eyes and nose. “Don’t tell me that. I- I’m supposed to be looking out for _you._ I promised Captain Jeralt I would.”

Solemnly, Byleth helps her stand up.

“I’m sorry. I know this must be even harder on you, but I can’t believe it… he’s gone.”

She’d become used to the blank void where expression should be upon Byleth’s face. Her smiles are rare and just as awkward. Sometimes, she might widen her eyes in surprise, but only for a moment. When she gets frustrated, her jaw juts out ever so slightly. Leonie had never seen _anguish_ in her repertoire, and now she wish she hadn’t.

They wrap their arms around each other, pass by Byleth’s soggy coat to pick it up, and head back to the dorms.


	6. promises for an old comrade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 6: Comrade
> 
> i didn't edit this before posting, i'll sweep through for typos and other errors later

Wars between royalty and nobles and _dragons_ are no place for a commoner, whose only role is to serve as an expendable soldier without remembrance when they’re buried in the dirt. Leonie’s father had once told her that, long before those bandits ever set foot in their village and before Captain Jeralt’s mercenaries arrived to save them. Never become entrenched in the affairs of those who step upon others to achieve their goals of conquest. They are driven by greed, nothing more.

Byleth stands beside Edelgard— the Flame Emperor, and Leonie’s heart plummets.

Then Dimitri absolutely _snaps_ , his classmates doing nothing (in either shock or terror, maybe both) as that kind prince who had once complimented Leonie’s form at the training grounds smashes a soldier’s skull as if it were a melon. The Archbishop reveals something far more terrible in her fury and that’s when Claude signals for the Golden Deer to begin a retreat.

The Holy Tomb is too crowded for a dragon, a prince gone mad, and a slew of Adrestian soldiers.

“Byleth!” Leonie shouts, but Claude tugs her along.

“I’m not losing any of you in that mess down there. Come on,” he grimly says. “The Flame Emperor was Edelgard, and Archbishop Rhea really is a dragon… this is the most disgusting punchline I’ve ever seen.”

* * *

Lysithea motions for her to follow late at night, when they’re less likely to be seen leaving the monastery. She’d always been somewhat prickly and difficult to speak to at the worst of times, but they’d long since reached a mutual respect, so Leonie asks no questions until they’re in the forest and certain no one had followed.

“How could you defect?!” If Lysithea weren’t a friend, Leonie might have grabbed her by the front of her uniform and shoved her against a tree. Anger courses through her blood, but Lysithea isn’t the person to redirect it towards.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I also know that you’re willing to listen to reason,” Lysithea says, her brisk pace even as she stumbles over tree roots. “The Flame Emperor is not to blame for all the atrocities that had plagued our school year.”

“You’re wrong. Captain Jeralt said the Flame Emperor— Edelgard orchestrated everything that had happened! How can you not see that?! We all saw her when Dimitri broke her mask!”

“Edelgard is… my friend, as well. She understands me like nobody else.” Lysithea pauses, not to contemplate, but to ignite a small fireball over her palm to light their path. The ground is steep and treacherous here. “And I understand her. You need to know her side of things.”

“She was stealing Crest Stones! She was the Flame Emperor! _She killed Captain Jeralt!_ ”

Lysithea takes a deep breath. “I’ll admit I don’t know the exact reasons behind Jeralt’s death, but I can say with the utmost certainty that Edelgard would never have ordered Monica to kill him. Monica— no, Kronya, was acting on her own.”

“How can you be sure of that?!”

“Because Byleth is her friend, too!” She grabs Leonie’s sleeve suddenly, but only to balance herself when her foot slips. Leonie grips her elbow to hold her steady.

… Byleth had sided with Edelgard. With the Flame Emperor. Nothing makes sense. Even Claude couldn’t make any rhyme or reason out of this (or maybe he had, and he was reluctant to share that information with his classmates. Leonie suspects it’s far too late to ask him what he knew, anyway) and had retreated to his room, either to prepare for the inevitable attack on Garreg Mach or to muse over his thoughts.

Friends are supposed to understand each other, aren’t they? Then why could she still never understand Byleth after all this time, even when they’d grown even closer at the academy in spite of the widening gap between them?

Maybe she should have transferred to the Black Eagles after all.

“Where are we going, Lysithea?”

“I’m surprised you’re finally asking that.”

“I had a lot of other things on my mind, okay?”

“We’re going to join Edelgard’s forces. She told me where to find them before the attack on the Holy Tomb. I expect Marianne must already be there.”

“Even Marianne…?”

“There are many others who have come to understand Edelgard and intend to support her, not only those in her immediate circle within the Black Eagles. I am one of them, after all.” Lysithea’s fireball does little to stop her from stumbling, so Leonie stays close to help her move over the slippery mud and treacherous tree roots and stray rocks. “Leonie, you’ve never cared about Crests, have you?”

“I know they bestow power granted by the Goddess herself, but I never thought too hard about them. Nobody in my village had a Crest and I’ve never met anyone with one before Captain Jeralt.” But she’d always admired his raw strength, not the strength that came from his Crest. Or were they one and the same? No, now’s not the time to ponder over that. “Only nobles have Crests. That’s how it goes. You’re lucky to have one, Lysithea.”

“Lucky to have _one_ …” Lysithea scoffs so quietly that Leonie isn’t sure if she heard that correctly. “Crests aren’t the blessing you’d been led to believe. They have caused untold suffering upon generations of children. You don’t know what it’s like!”

“Don’t snap at me. How was I supposed to know that?” Leonie pauses. “Sorry. Continue.”

Lysithea is running out of breath from the exertion of climbing up the hill, but she keeps talking. “Some children are cast aside just because they don’t have a Crest. Those who do have their lives controlled and futures dictated from the moment their Crest manifests. I’ve always envied your freedom, Leonie. You aren’t shackled by the nobility, nor by the tragic fate of Crests. If anything, I would say _you’re_ the lucky one.”

“I’m lucky? My village had no money and we were almost wiped out by bandits! If it weren’t for the Gloucesters sending Jeralt’s company to defend us, we wouldn’t have made it through the winter!”

“That’s exactly it! Why should your village helplessly depend on the Gloucesters? It’s that exact disparity that Edelgard intends to upheave!” Lysithea gestures violently, nearly flinging the fireball at a tree. “We cannot live in a world where Crests dictate the worth of a human being’s life! Edelgard will free us all of that curse!”

Leonie’s father would tell her to stay out of it, because these matters never actually concern commoners like them.

Do they?

“… Why go through all this trouble of making me tag along?”

“You would have tried to find Edelgard either way, wouldn’t you? Byleth is with her, after all. It’s easier if you have at least a slight idea of why we’re choosing to fight for the Empire.”

Then the forest suddenly clears before them, and they can see a crumbling structure with torchlights faintly flickering through the windows up ahead. Lysithea is wheezing by now, unable to protest properly as Leonie hauls her onto her back for the rest of the way.

The fortress is occupied by many familiar faces, but Marianne is the only other student from her class Leonie recognizes. Claude will be only partially wounded that three of his classmates have left, then. At least he’ll have Hilda and Lorenz by his side. Small comforts. Marianne doesn’t say much, only slightly bows her head and drifts away to stare at a wall. The shock definitely hasn’t quite worn off and some others are sitting with their heads in their hands or nervously pacing. She passes by Petra, standing proud and confident in contrast with a quivering Bernadetta, and they nod at each other with small smiles.

Lysithea slips off her back to go speak with Edelgard. She points at Leonie, and Edelgard locks eyes with her for a split second, and whether or not Edelgard can see the lingering distrust and hatred doesn’t seem to matter at all when Leonie doesn’t find herself being confronted or thrown out. Even Hubert leaves her be.

Edelgard had never asked her to join her class again, after the first rejection.

She finds Byleth running back and forth in seemingly aimless circles like an overcharged dog, but Leonie knows she’s only trying to check on everyone in her own unique way. She screeches to a halt when she spots Leonie, her face brightening, and sprints over to grab her arms and press their foreheads together. The burning anger that had been gripping her heart instantly dissipates.

This war may be for a new world where no one would have to suffer because of Crests, or live beneath the crushing thumb of a church led by a dragon, but Leonie had always been a simple person. Captain Jeralt had called her simple many times, and now she wears it like a badge of honor. She knows where her priorities lie, and it’s not with the Empire that intends to change the world.

“Hey!” Leonie laughs, breathless. “I’m glad to see you’re alright. I was worried.”

“Mmh. Me too.”

“I’m on your side no matter what. I promised your dad, but now this promise is for you alone.”

“Thank you, Leonie.”

* * *

Five years is an awfully long time to allow grudges to fester.

* * *

Shamir brings another letter from the Empire, probably the fourth by now, personally signed by Hubert von Vestra himself and offering a lump sum of gold that would make anyone’s mouth salivate. Admittedly, Leonie hesitates as well. Mercenaries are meant to be bought out, after all, and she still hasn’t forgotten her debt to her village.

Even though the debt isn’t exactly an urgent matter anymore, and probably won’t be for a long while.

She would readily admit she’d accepted payments from the Empire in exchange for employment before, simply because she needed _some_ way to get food when hunting wasn’t viable and to buy a bed for those nights when it rained too heavily. They aren’t her enemies. But the Kingdom and the Church aren’t her enemies either, and the Alliance is too busy squabbling within itself to play sides. Politics both infuriate and bore her. Leonie isn’t cut out to dwell on these things.

It’s just. She made a promise years ago, and she doesn’t intend to break it.

The Empire can’t completely buy her out no matter how much they offer. Edelgard had even promised to make her a general in her army, just like how she’d offered Leonie a hassle-free transfer to the Black Eagles house, but to be one of Edelgard’s generals would be to abandon her promise and her mission.

When she wavers, she thinks back to the last conversation she ever had with Captain Jeralt, and Leonie remembers that the greatest thing about being a mercenary is that endless freedom.

She answers to no one, not even Edelgard von Hresvelg, the woman who intends to overturn Fódlan and see it rise anew from the ashes. So she sends Shamir back with a polite refusal and continues on her way.

But maybe she’s chasing after a ghost at this point.

Days pass. Weeks pass. The moon crosses through the seasons and the war is at a stalemate because King Dimitri has the might of a dragon and the Church backing his Kingdom. The Alliance continues to play at neutrality, no doubt a clever strategy on Claude’s part.

Then, she finds Byleth at the bottom of a ravine, half-buried in the mud.

Leonie drags her out onto dry ground, touches her wrist, feels no pulse, and sits beside the body.

So that’s that.

Five years.

Nothing to it.

She pulls a bit of jerky from her pocket and chews on it, contemplating about absolutely nothing. She feels nothing. Maybe later she’ll scream herself hoarse and punch something until her knuckles are bloody and raw and then she’ll feel something, finally. What should she punch? A tree should do. Yeah.

“Hungry…”

Leonie squints up at the sky.

“Give me some.”

She isn’t quite sure what she’s feeling now, at this moment, when Byleth’s arm is dropping onto her leg and she’s weakly trying to grab at the piece of jerky in her hand.

“Get up, you useless lump,” Leonie says, her voice trembling in spite of herself. “You overslept big time. And you stink of mud, too. What’s your problem? You don’t have a pulse? What are you, some kind of zombie? Or am I just hallucinating?”

Byleth pushes herself upright, blinks, and flops against Leonie. “Hungry,” she repeats.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Here, don’t eat all of it at once.”

“Don’t cry.”

Captain Jeralt would be laughing out loud at this.

“—You _idiot!_ ” Leonie cries, clinging tightly to her, mud and all.

* * *

“Nothing I do could ever repay you for bringing Byleth back to us,” Edelgard says. She’s wearing her armor, but at least she had the grace to remove that menacing set of horns before Leonie came to speak with her. The Emperor had always been whispered about as a terrifying pillar of conquest, brutal and ruthless in that path she blazes across Fódlan, but Leonie only sees the woman who had almost wept with relief when Leonie dragged Byleth through the gates.

Everyone had been beside themselves with joy, not just Edelgard. Leonie didn’t even realize Byleth was that popular, but she supposes that’s the least strangest thing about her.

“I don’t need payment,” Leonie says. “I didn’t do this for you, I did it to find my friend and to keep a promise to her dad.”

“But…?”

“… There is something you could do.”

“Anything you want, Leonie. You have my word.”

She takes a deep breath. “I know the Empire isn’t going to leave the Alliance alone much longer with the situation there. Claude is doing all he can to hold things together while stirring up just enough trouble to keep the Alliance neutral to the war, but he can’t keep doing that forever.”

“You’ve been in contact with him?”

“No, I just figured that’s what will happen.” Claude is smart, but he’s not invincible. Nobody is. A part of Leonie still regrets turning down his request for aid those years ago. He really was a good friend. “When the Empire sends troops to march into the Alliance, I want you to promise that you’ll protect Sauin Village. But no relay base, no occupation, nothing— you’ll leave them alone and make sure others leave them alone, too.”

Edelgard nods. “I’ll personally see to it that your village remains safe for the duration of the war.”

“Raphael and Ignatz’ village, too! I know they didn’t join you, but… it’s not too much to ask, is it?”

“My aim is not to indiscriminately burn villages in my path. I would prefer to keep civilian casualties to a minimum.” Edelgard folds her arms, looking aside. “My conquest will be absolute, but those who are currently called commoners are not those I would ever subjugate. If they choose to revolt against my Empire then that’s their decision.”

“You don’t sound too bothered about it…”

“I don’t think they’ll have much of a reason to rebel,” Edelgard says, and now Leonie sees that Emperor that soldiers speak of with awe touched by a tinge of fear. “Lysithea should have told you of my aims.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“Very well.” Her expression softens. “Thank you, again, for finding Byleth.”

It all comes crashing down on her like a bolt of lightning. Leonie jumps to her feet, an old anger rising like bile in her throat. She’d nearly forgotten.

“ _That's right._ Did you really have nothing to do with Captain Jeralt’s death, then?!”

“I—“

“Lysithea said you’re not responsible, but you _were_ responsible for Kronya, weren’t you?! Why did you let her kill him?!” The door slams open; Hubert is ready to fling a fistful of dark magic in Leonie’s face, but Edelgard quickly holds up a hand to make him halt. Leonie ignores him. “Don’t try to lie, either! I saw you talking to Monica plenty of times around the monastery! You were allies!”

Edelgard takes a deep breath through her nose. “What happened to Jeralt was… regrettable.”

“ _Regrettable?_ ”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Edelgard says, never tearing her eyes away from Leonie. “Kronya and I may have been allies at the time, but we had entirely different objectives. The same goes for that man who disguised himself as Tomas.”

“But you could have stopped her, couldn’t you?!”

Her expression cracks. “… Maybe I could have, yes.”

Leonie realizes how hard she’s breathing, and how crazed she must look in her sudden anger. She should have confronted Edelgard about this a long, long time ago. Had she been festering in this resentment and anger all these years? Unsaid revenge for her mentor? There was nobody to take revenge on after Lysithea had insisted the Flame Emperor had nothing to do with it. 

Hubert takes a step forward. “Leonie, if you cannot contain your temper—“

“It’s alright, Hubert,” Edelgard says. “She deserves these answers.”

She falls back onto her seat, staring at her hands. “You could have saved him.”

“Yes. If I had known what Kronya was planning, I would have done anything in my power to stop her,” Edelgard softly says. “Please believe me, Leonie. I held nothing but respect for Captain Jeralt.”

“But it’s not really your fault, is what you’re saying.”

“Would blaming me make you feel better?”

“… I thought it would, a long time ago.” Leonie still feels the anger bubbling, but it’s no longer boiling, only simmering. “But I still need to know. _Why_ did Kronya target Captain Jeralt?”

Hubert visibly tenses behind Edelgard, glowering. She has a feeling she’s about to find out about whatever it was that had gotten Captain Jeralt killed for knowing.

“I think he was dangerously close to uncovering the truth about Those Who Slither in the Dark.”

“Lady Edelgard, I do not believe it is wise to reveal these things to her.”

Once again, Edelgard silences him with one raised hand. “Perhaps you’re right, Hubert. But shouldn’t Jeralt’s apprentice know, if we’re to share the truth with his daughter? I can’t tell you all the details, Leonie, but you should be aware of who Kronya was really working for.”

* * *

“Leonie!” Lysithea ambushes her almost the moment she closes the door behind her. “Byleth had said Edelgard wanted to talk to you in the war council room. I… am glad you’ve finally decided to join us here.”

“Yeah,” Leonie says, trying to collect herself. “I missed you a lot too, Lysithea. How’ve you been?”

“Well, apart from the fact that the war is at a tense stalemate and morale had been middling for some time now, I’ve been well enough. Come,” Lysithea grabs her hand, pulling her down the hall. Leonie almost digs her heels in when they pass by what used to be Jeralt’s old room. “Marianne will be pleased to see you. I think I saw her at the greenhouse— let’s not keep her waiting.”


	7. family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 7: Family
> 
> a belated happy birthday to Leonie!!!! short chapter bc im tired
> 
> edit: added some stuff, no major changes

Edelgard speaks of grand reforms and upheaval to the laws Fódlan had long lived by, but even someone like Leonie understands that change takes time, and that time cannot heal every wound.

When she closes her eyes, she can sometimes see Lorenz and Ignatz at the Great Bridge of Myrddin. Hilda had put up a magnificent last stand at Derdriu. Who knows where Raphael had been, if he’d simply been one of many soldiers buried in piles of bodies without a name or a grave or if he’d fled to one of the villages Edelgard swore not to raze.

Leonie isn’t quite sure if she should pity Claude for being spared, or be relieved that Edelgard decided to leave his head on his shoulders. He left, anyway. Probably won’t come back to Fódlan for a long time, or ever again.

She thinks back to the bandit she had killed in the Red Canyon, back when she was only a student, and wonders why she can’t seem to shed any tears for her old classmates. Maybe because… that’s just war. People and beasts are as one. A mercenary carries no regrets for the lives they’ve taken. Things like that. Fighting is easier when she doesn’t think about who’s going to be at the end of her lance.

Captain Jeralt should be proud of her for making it out alive.

* * *

Well, there’s nothing left to it. Her debt to her village is all paid off thanks to the Empire, the war is over, and it’s time to make good on that dream she’d held onto through all these years. She leads her horse out of the stables before the sun is up, already mapping out a course in her head to figure out the fastest way to go home. It’s weird, thinking about home. A part of her doesn’t feel ready just yet, even though she’s aching to see how her parents and everyone else are doing.

Almyra is a long way from here, but if she could face Claude again…

No. There’s no point in apologizing for the decisions she made. She’d be insulting him and his pride if she asked for forgiveness when she showed no hesitance in Derdriu.

Claude would understand, she hopes.

For now, she’ll follow her own path and see where it takes her.

She makes it past the gates when she hears someone running after her. Leonie closes her eyes and takes a deep breath of that brisk morning air, and tugs her horse to a halt.

“Wait—!” Oh, Byleth is carrying a knapsack and a plain steel sword sheathed at her hip. That means…

“Byleth. Sorry, I wasn’t sure how to say goodbye,” Leonie says, her smile lopsided and half-hearted. “I kept my promise to Captain Jeralt and made sure you were safe. But I’ve gotta go my own way now. I can’t dedicate my life to being your adjutant, you know?”

“I know.”

Byleth is different now. She hasn’t been the same ever since the Immaculate One had fallen and the Empire put out the fires in Fhirdiad. What it is exactly, Leonie can’t quite put her finger on, but she wonders if there’s more life behind her eyes now than there was before or if Byleth is just relieved the war is over.

Leonie won’t ask what she did with the Sword of the Creator. That’s none of her business.

“… Edelgard wants you to stay. I know how much she trusts you— second only to Hubert, or third to Lysithea. Ferdinand is probably in there somewhere, too. I don’t know, three or four might be a crowd, but it sounded like she was thinking of keeping you close by as one of her advisors. Don’t you think you ought to be there for her?”

“That would be the selfless thing to do,” Byleth slowly says, moving around to stroke the horse’s face. And to stop Leonie from going anywhere.

“You’re not exactly renown for doing things selfishly. That’s why everyone likes you.”

“What do you think?”

“I think…” That the Emperor will need all the help she can get if she intends to keep her promise to help those trapped in poverty, and the people who lost their livelihoods from the war. And the shadowy group that was truly responsible for Captain Jeralt’s death have yet to be dealt with, but she no longer thinks about revenge. Leonie is tired, and she just wants to bask in the aftermath of the war, and maybe one day forget about the notion of finding Claude. Leonie sighs. “You should do whatever you want.”

“Edelgard has many friends,” Byleth says with a small, small smile as she pets the horse. “She’s not alone. She doesn’t need me there.”

“I’m not sure about that…”

“I don’t like politics, Leonie.”

“Oh.” Leonie sort of laughs. “Same here.”

Yeah, she can’t really imagine Byleth offering any particularly useful advice when it comes to bureaucracy and diplomatic affairs and ironing out the crinkles left of territories that need to be redistributed and old Houses torn down from their Crest-bearing pedestals. What a headache. Leonie’s suddenly glad that Edelgard only sought her out for war council meetings, not to discuss treatises.

She expects Edelgard will find some way to hire her again as a mercenary, anyway. This wouldn’t be their only farewell. Leaving Garreg Mach like this is just Leonie’s final act of defiance, to show that she have never and will never answer to anyone.

Byleth, on the other hand, seems to be caught somewhere in the limbo between _leader_ and _follower._ Captain Jeralt had once said that he believed his kid would one day overtake him. He never said such things to Leonie in spite of all the confidence he had in her. Once, Leonie had resented his daughter for stupidly petty reasons, but now she gets it.

She'll carve out her own legacy as Leonie Pinelli, not just wear Captain Jeralt's secondhand. 

“So I’m coming with you," Byleth says. "I don't want to be a knight or a politician. I want to be a mercenary."

“I told you—”

“I’m not your responsibility to keep safe anymore.”

Leonie wipes at her eyes, even though they’re dry. “You’ve been a real thorn in my side, you know that? First you sided with the Empire, then you disappeared. I spent five years looking for you… then I fought in a _war_ partly because of you. You really piss me off, sometimes. Always have.”

“Yeah.”

“And now you have a pulse!”

“It’s weird.”

“Really? You’ll get used to it. Nobody notices their own heartbeat.”

They fall into silence for a moment. The guards at the gate are probably wondering why they’re still standing in the middle of the road. Some people might be waking up at this hour too, and Marianne will no doubt be the first to realize Leonie is gone when she sees the empty stall beside Dorte. She’ll have to write to Marianne. Come back for her, someday. She can’t face Claude again, but at least she has other friends to return to.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“You’re the only family I have left,” Byleth plainly says.

Ah.

Something in Leonie’s chest tightens. She had never considered herself to be particularly sentimental, just like Byleth, but…

Leonie extends a hand and helps Byleth saddle up behind her. They’ll find another horse on the way. This will do, for now.

“Where to first?” Byleth asks, patting Leonie’s shoulder.

“We’re going home,” Leonie says. “To Sauin Village.”

**Author's Note:**

> a big thank you to anyone who read through this whole thing! i know leonie isn't very well-loved in the fandom but she's my favorite character (except...... maybe second to shamir) and i've wanted to write something about her and jeralt, and byleth, for a very long time. i know i could have done better with this entire fic, like keeping the pacing and timeline more consistent, but i did my best to stick to the prompts for each day and i had fun writing everything anyway. i hope some other leonie fans out there were able to get a kick out of this self-indulgent thing as well!


End file.
